Digital currencies failing as money, but technology has promise-Carney

Mark Carney, Bank of England governor said Friday that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are failing as a form of money and have shown clear signs of being a financial bubble, but their technology could improve the financial system in future,

Carney joined a chorus of concern among global policymakers over the rise of digital currencies, saying authorities needed to prevent their use by criminals and new rules were needed to treat them like other assets.

Despite the surge in interest in cryptocurrencies, they were no substitute for cash or payment cards, he said in a speech.

“The long, charitable answer is that cryptocurrencies act as money, at best, only for some people and to a limited extent, and even then only in parallel with the traditional currencies of the users,” he said. “The short answer is they are failing.”

Bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency, soared in value from around $1,000 at the start of 2017 to almost $20,000 in mid-December, before tumbling below $6,000 last month and then staging a partial recovery.

Facebook banned adverts for cryptocurrencies last month and Carney said on Friday that younger investors, who typically invested in them, were probably less aware of the bubbles in markets that led to the 2007-09 financial crisis.

He did not call for a ban, saying cryptocurrencies did not pose a risk to the financial system and instead they should be brought into the net of regulation.

“Many cryptocurrencies have exhibited the classic hallmarks of bubbles including new paradigm justifications, broadening retail enthusiasm and extrapolative price expectations reliant in part on finding the greater fool,” he said.

Carney’s call for regulation for the sector was welcomed by a well-known cryptocurrency investor.

“Everybody who believes in cryptocurrencies agrees that we need regulation to move forwards, nobody wants this to be the wild west anymore,” Michelle Mone, a co-founder of EQUI, a platform for investment in technology companies.

Carney, who heads the global rule-making body, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), expressed doubts about cryptocurrencies earlier this year and his speech, intended for a Scottish student economics conference, expanded on these.

“Crypto-assets raise a host of issues around consumer and investor protection, market integrity, money laundering, terrorism financing, tax evasion, and the circumvention of capital controls and international sanctions,” he said.